East Dean's Serene Village Green

Last year I spent two weeks traveling across South England, researching my Rick Steves England guidebook. At the same time, I collected lots of great ideas for this month's TV shoot. For example, I fell in love with a tiny hamlet called East Dean, with a classic medieval village green and a darling little pub that rents rooms. So this year I'm back with my TV crew.

In this clip, we're just setting up to record a bunch of promos for public television stations. (With me are producer Simon Griffith and cameraman Karel Bauer. I'm thankful to have such a talented and hardworking crew. For a behind-the-scenes look at how we make our show, you can join the three of us in Milan for our "The Making of Rick Steves' Europe" special.)

In our scripts, I always find an informative way to slip in what month we're traveling in. For this show, I'll walk across this fine green and say to the camera, "We're here in August. In Britain, I prefer traveling in peak season -- long days, the best possible weather, enough people out and about to keep things lively...and there are rarely any tourist crowds."

We're here in the most crowded months in one of England's favorite tourist regions. And, while there are plenty of tourists, I'm impressed by how few American travelers we've seen. In fact, in the last ten days of travel across South England, I've probably seen only 20 or 30 Americans. (I think they're all in London, Bath, York, and Edinburgh.)

This is Day 81 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I'm reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Vienna, the Alps, the Low Countries, England, and beyond. Find more on my travel blog.

(This post originally appeared at blog.ricksteves.com/blog/east-dean.)